Critics' Opinion:
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Published Jul 2010
352 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Set on the coast of Maine over the course of four summers, Red Hook Road tells the story of two families, the Tetherlys and the Copakens, and of the ways in which their lives are unraveled and stitched together by misfortune, by good intentions and failure, and by love and calamity.
A marriage collapses under the strain of a daughter’s death; two bereaved siblings find comfort in one another; and an adopted young girl breathes new life into her family with her prodigious talent for the violin. As she writes with obvious affection for these unforgettable characters, Ayelet Waldman skillfully interweaves life’s finer pleasures—music and literature—with the more mundane joys of living. Within these resonant pages, a vase filled with wildflowers or a cold beer on a hot summer day serve as constant reminders that it’s often the little things that make life so precious.
"Though Waldman is often guilty of overwriting, here the narrative is well crafted, and each of the characters comes fully to life." - Publishers Weekly
"Waldman has written a tale of two families forced together through love and tragedy. Fans of Waldman's work and readers who enjoy family sagas will find this book a pleasure." - Library Journal
"A thoroughly gripping and elegantly written story about love, grief, friendship, and the unexpected ways in which disaster brings families together. The novel is chockfull of revelations and insights on how people both unravel and manage to find grace under strain." - Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner
"This beautiful novel shows us how families cope with the most painful kinds of loss and reminds us that even as grief fractures, it can pave the way for unexpected grace." - Ann Packer, author of The Dive from Clausen’s Pier
This information about Red Hook Road was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ayelet Waldman is the author several books, including Red Hook Road, Bad Mother, and Daughter's Keeper as well as seven Mommy-Track mystery novels. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Believer, Child, Guardian, Vogue and Salon.com.
Waldman and her husband, the novelist Michael Chabon, live in Berkeley, California, with their four children.
From the author's website
Link to Ayelet Waldman's Website
Name Pronunciation
Ayelet Waldman: Eye-El-Et Wald-min
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